Anyone else read There But For The by Ali Smith? I just started it and so far, so good. I'm interested to see how far the author can take the premise of a dinner guest who locks himself in a guest room and won't come out, even after many days go by. Apparently this idea can span 230+ pages.

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Tupac Shakur,the greatest rapper of all time,is now in the National Recording Registry

NIGHT CALLS(Finally have a title! )YA Paranormal Romance/YA Novel Coming 2015.(FINALLY.)
Chocolate&Coffee are necessary for a happy life.

"You've got to stop with this rap crap,Kitty. Put on some blues,gal! Feel that pain,soul and a good old time. Get with some Howling Wolf,Denise LaSalle and Johnny Taylor. Not that Snoopy boy or whatever his name is."RC Wilcox,RIP

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairy Land in a Ship of her Own Making By Catherine Valente-So far so good, I've heard complaints it over does the whimsy factor for some people, but I like it. I think Valente knows when to tone it down where as China Mieville didn't in his book "I Wish I had Thought of Clive Barkers Abarat First"Un-Lun-Dun.

Also, A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

-Read it years ago all the way through, breezed through it then, now? After that I tried re-reading a couple times but never could quite make it. Now I'm setting an easy but fast pace, I think it's the hype for Season Two of the television series, which helps.

__________________“So, given a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement.”~JK RowlingOn Desk:Nuthin.Trunked: Too many to count!

I can, without any doubt, assert that I am currently reading a novel no one else frequenting AW is:

The Wandering Jew, by Eugene Sue.

At the beginning of the year I posted another thread here, announcing my "classic" author to read for 2012, which was to be Walter Scott. But i got distracted, via my 23-year-old son relating something he'd heard about the legend of the wandering Jew, a being fated to live eternally and wander the world in search of redemption.

I have long collected books, and I happened to have a copy of this immense novel (~1500 pages) dating from about 1950. I bought it years ago in a used book shop, and it has a really nice handwritten birthday-present dedication from Maxine to Marie on the inside of the cover. I truly hope Marie read it, or maybe someone else did.

In any case, it is in very good condition, and I got interested enough to give it a go. And am enjoying it. It is melodramatic, in the way that many early 19th-century novels are, but the translation is good, and it is in readable prose. It was a huge best-seller when it appeared, back when, and was at least prominent enough to merit inclusion in the Modern Library Giant editions of the 1950s, which is the copy I have. I suspect that not only is nobody here reading it, or ever has read it, but that very few here have ever heard of it.

It is a bit DanBrownish, involving a complex evil Jesuit conspiracy to control the world, using Indian thuggee, among other malign influences. But, like the novel that intrigued me with Walter Scott (The Talisman), a pleasant surprise to read, so far. I'm about 200 pages in. I figure to finish about when the Philadelphia Phillies win the world series in October.

The story is not, by the way, in any manner anti-Semitic. Which statement seems to be necessary, given present-day sensitivities. It is, from what I've read so far, very much anti-Jesuit, however.

blacbird, if you get the chance, I recommend seeing the play Underneath the Lintel. I saw it in 2008, and heard it on the radio a few months later. I'm not sure if it is still being performed anywhere. It is a monologue, framed as a lecture where a man presents the audience with the evidence for the story he is telling. The versions I saw / heard starred Richard Schiff (Toby from The West Wing) and were excellent.

Just coming to the end of 'Carmilla' by J. Sheridan LeFanu. Wonderfully subversive and erotic. Great gothic novella which influenced Bram Stoker I believe.

Been mostly reading a lot of non-fiction lately including Peter Ackroyd's books on London (Underground) and his biography of Dickens. Also recently finished Paul Mason's (BBC Newsnight's economics editor) Why It's Kicking off Everywhere, which is a brief narrative & analysis of the social upheavals of the past four or five years (post credit crunch) with particular attention paid to the Arab Spring. Tis very good indeed.